iOS 16.2, which was produced to the general public in December, seems to have as soon as once again damaged gapless playback for Iphone and iPad people. In accordance to complaints from a variety of buyers on Apple’s help boards and Reddit, gapless playback with the Music application has been broken considering the fact that iOS 16.2 was produced.
iOS 16.2 and gapless playback
Gapless playback, for individuals unfamiliar, is when one particular song seamlessly transitions into the up coming with out a split. This is significantly notable on albums established with gapless playback in mind, this sort of as the 2nd 50 % of Abbey Street by The Beatles or musical soundtracks such as Hamilton, as nicely as are living concert recordings.
Just one detail to note is that gapless playback is diverse than crossfade, which will allow a music to fade in (slowly improve its volume) when the earlier song is fading out. Gapless playback has been supported by Apple across all of its platforms for many years, while crossfade is nonetheless not supported by Apple Tunes on Apple iphone.
In iOS 16.2, on the other hand, it appears to be like gapless playback is totally broken for quite a few Apple iphone and iPad consumers. This signifies that there is a multi-2nd hole involving tunes, even when the album was intended to be listened to without the need of gaps. A person consumer on Apple’s help discussion boards suggests:
Is any person else owning challenges with gapless playback on iOS 16.2? (I have an Apple iphone 14 Professional Max, if that’s appropriate.)
Every couple of tunes in a gapless album, I’ll get a instant of silence among tracks that is really irritating when the songs are intended to move efficiently into each individual other.
A further user:
I just cannot imagine that we’re ending 2022 and Apple still have not delivered a strong gapless playback to Apple Audio. 1 iOS update will repair the bug and then a further a person will come alongside and breaks it again. It makes for these types of an irritating and unenjoyable listening working experience. Supplied how significantly we pay in subscriptions, you’d hope that Apple builders could have observed a good take care of by now and specified it the consideration it deserves.
The challenges also seem to lengthen to the HomePod:
Yes I have this too. I use the HomePod for limitless white sounds for sleeping and it is so aggravating that each couple minutes it stops for like a 2nd or two. I believed it might have had one thing to do with the new HomeKit Architecture enhance but possibly it is just an iOS/HomePod 16.2 situation.
A selection of complaints have also emerged in several threads on Reddit, the place end users lament Apple’s incapacity to reliability support gapless playback on Iphone and iPad. The feature is also continue to borked for most buyers in the most up-to-date betas of iOS 16.3 and iPadOS 16.3.
9to5Mac’s Just take
If this all appears acquainted, it is for the reason that a thing eerlily very similar took place with the launch of iOS 15.4 very last 12 months.
Between (recurring) bugs like this and the absence of crossfade, you have to ponder if there are some major underlying audio motor concerns affecting Apple Audio on Apple iphone and iPad. We really do not genuinely know how considerably of the Apple Songs architecture on Apple iphone is centered on the legacy basis from the iTunes times.
There are also a variety of other ways the Apple Tunes experience requires to boost, such as considerable updates to the general performance, reliability, and navigation of the Songs app throughout all of Apple’s platforms.
Preferably, Apple will make some big updates to Apple New music on Apple iphone with this year’s release of iOS 17, but early rumors are iOS 17 is not likely to get a great deal notice this calendar year.
This gapless playback bug doesn’t show up to have an affect on every person and can vary based mostly on things like what file structure and streaming high quality placing you use. Have you discovered this challenge? Allow us know in the feedback.